Pet Peeve

Blogging is, I know, an informal medium, but would it be too much to expect someone with an English degree from an Ivy League university to write better than Megan McCardle does on her Atlantic blog? Here's just one of her offenses today (from this post):

But of course, if Hilzoy [a prominent, pseudonymous liberal blogger] were in the Senate, she wouldn't be Hilzoy; she'd be someone who had just spent some of the best years of their life putting themself into a position to get into the Senate.

How hard would it have been to substitute her and herself for "their" and "themself" (which isn't even a word)?

Sloppy writing often correlates with sloppy thinking.

English versus Brazilian Portuguese

The Financial Times invited a series of guest columnists to opine about the future of capitalism this week, and one of those guests was the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula's essay ("The Future of Human Beings is What Matters"), which was mocked by a letter writer later in the week¹, doesn't offer much revelation. Lula recounts his hardscrabble background, which may be of interest to those still unfamiliar with his biography, and describes some of Brazil's recent successes in growing its economy while increasing aid to its poor. In truth though, the Brazilian president deserves more credit for what he hasn't done. He has avoided the radical populist policies of some of his neighbors, and Brazil has continued some sensible macroeconomic policies on his watch. As a result, it looks to be in a better position to weather the current downturn.

That op/ed by the Brazilian president reminded me of something I read years ago, a comparison of American English to Brazilian Portuguese in Mark Helprin's 1997 novel, Memoir from an Antproof Case. The speaker below, the narrator of Helprin's novel, is an elderly American who has settled in Brazil after a long and rather picaresque life, and teaches English at the Brazilian naval academy in Rio de Janeiro:

Portuguese is a magnificent language -- Intimate, sensual, and fun. The great poets make it sound like a musical incantation of slurred elisions and rhythmic dissolves, and day-to-day, corrupted, vital, and undisciplined, it is ideal for the dissolute life of a modern city, though what it gains in humor and intimacy it loses in precision and resolution. In fact, it is, when compared to English, almost like a baby language.

Do not misinterpret me. I love baby language, for babies, but among adults it can be rather annoying, especially if you have been here thirty years with not a day of relief, having arrived fully formed and mature, and having come, as I did, from a place where language is not a perfumed cushion but a tightly strung bow that sends sharp arrows into the heart of everything.

The language of my boyhood was the language of ice and steel. It had the strong and lovely cadence of engines in a trance. The song of the world in snow, it was woefully inadequate for conveying material ecstasy, but more than enough for the expression of spiritual triumph.

Portuguese of course isn't a "baby language", but it does lend itself well to song, for reasons Helprin lyrically describes above.

The photo above is a snapshot Cheryl took a few years ago of part of Rio de Janeiro from the top of one of the local tourist sites, Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf) mountain.

¹Letter writer Prof. Alex Callinicos wrote, in part:

Sir, I’m delighted to learn that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, thinks that “the future of human beings is what matters” (March 10). Evidently your series on the Future of Capitalism is stimulating real thinking outside the box. But even worse than the familiar banalities of grandees (at least you seem to be sparing us Bono) is your own special pleading.

The O.E.D. on "Conversate" and "Aks" versus "Ask"

On his Atlantic blog, Ta-Nehisi Coates transcribes a conversation he had with Jesse Sheidlower, Editor at Large of the Oxford English Dictionary ("Added Bonus: Irregardless of what you think, "conversate" is a word"). English mavens may find this of interest. Here's an excerpt:

TNC: What fuels the notion that certain words aren't really words?

JS: There a lot of different things. People feel that there is a certain kind of language that's appropriate and a certain type that isn't appropriate. And these judgments are based on many things--some may make sense, some might not. People take these things very seriously. People are told things about the language in school that are demonstrably untrue, and they think anyone who doesn't follow along with those beliefs is stupid or wrong.

Let me give you an example, in terms of looking at things historically. At the beginning of this conversation you pronounced the word "ask" as "aks." This is something that people often object to. People say it's the wrong pronunciation, and it's stupid. But if you look at the history of the English language, you can't tell if the correct pronunciation is "aks" or "ask." The "aks" pronunciation goes back 1000 years. It's in Beowulf. It's in Chaucer.

What happened was both were in use. But at some point, the dialect in which the "ask" pronunciation was used became dominant. But both continued and have been in use since then. When you look at America, the "aks" pronunciation is widespread in Southern American English. African-Americans used this because they were in the South--it's not especially African-American, but its Southern.

Now, if you look at other Germanic languages, the "correct" pronunciation is, in fact, "ask"--but you can't tell that looking just at English and it ultimately doesn't matter. If I asked you to name the ordinal number between "second" and "fourth" you'd say, what?

TNC: Third.

JS: Right, third--but the old pronunciation is "thred," it comes from three. But if you were to say thred, you'd be considered a moron--even though it's "correct."